


The Case

by DarkJediQueen



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:43:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen
Summary: Aaron never thought that they would get a case like this.





	The Case

**Author's Note:**

> **Year** : Season 5 (2009)  
>  **Spoilers** : Up Through Season 5  
>  **Notes** : None  
>  **Beta** : Grammarly

Aaron Hotchner wasn't sure why the BAU had been called in for a missing Deputy Sheriff in rural Virginia, but then when JJ had handed over the case information, they found that the Deputy had gone missing after he had been looking into a case that had four dead in extraordinary circumstances. The closest airport that the jet could set down on was just far enough away that it was pretty much just as quick to drive down themselves. So Aaron had driven one SUV while Morgan drove the other and they conference called on cell phones to discuss the case.

"This place is interesting," Morgan said as he got out of the driver's seat.

Aaron had to agree. The little town was nothing like what Aaron would have thought it would be. It was June, but to see Pride flags everywhere was a shock.

"Agents?" a voice called out.

"Yes," Aaron said as he turned around to look at the woman who had spoken. She was in a Sheriff's outfit for the area, and Aaron gave her a handshake. She had a firm grip, and Aaron returned it. "Thank you for inviting us in."

"Thank you for coming. I know that this is not a typical case that you would come in on, but my Deputy is one of the best I've had in a long time. He's smart as a whip, and he wouldn't just disappear."

"You aren't afraid that it's other cops are you?" Aaron asked.

"No, no. Every single officer in the area has been looking into this. I have all of the files on that. We know that it has to do with the damned case he's been working. He works better alone, but he will take out one of the newbies with him if he needs someone who can do the more physical stuff. My Deputy has a leg injury that stops him from doing a lot, and I had to pull strings to get him where he is. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

"I notice that you are not giving us a name," Dave said.

"No, no I'm not Agent Rossi. I was given very detailed instructions on what I am allowed to give you and what I am not. He said he had worked a case with you before and he didn't want that coloring your judgment. So I have those files ready for you. It's the case as we have it without his own observations as well as what we have about his going missing."

Aaron didn't like it, but he wasn't going to butt in at all where they weren't wanted. Dave wasn't happy, and Morgan was ready to blow up, so Aaron just pulled them all into the conference room.

"Well, this person is thorough," Dave said after an hour of reading typed notes about all of the work that had been put into the murder cases."

"No kidding," Prentiss said as she tossed her file down onto the table with the piles of others. "He worked up the entire case and gave us all of the stuff that we would have done to get ready to fully start working on the case. Whoever this Deputy is, he did work with us before. I just...has the team ever been near here?"

"No," Aaron said. He laid his folder down and picked up the last. "Not here but a few other cases around the state. I still don't understand why we would need to have him taken out of the equation of abduction to find him."

"Hotch," JJ said a few minutes later.

Aaron was engrossed in a summary report of the ME's findings on the last body. He was nearly done, but a small detail caught his eye. He looked up at JJ and saw the same fear in her eyes that he was feeling in his body. Aaron stood up, and JJ went with him. Aaron heard the team behind asking questions. The Sheriff was standing at the door to the office for the Deputy. She gave him a wan smile and opened the door. Aaron was the first into the office, and there behind the desk was a map of the county, that had the pins in it of a geographic profile.

"Shit," Dave said.

"What?" Brannon asked as he cleared Aaron's side so that he could see.

Everyone but Brannon knew Spencer Reid's quirks about his pins that he used in his maps for geographic profiles. There was no chance that they weren't looking for Reid. Aaron felt his heart clench at that. An UnSub had taken the BAU away from Reid now another set of UnSubs were going to take Reid's life from him the team didn't find him soon.

"You guys going to help us find the Professor?" a new voice asked.

"Who are you?" Morgan asked it seemed he had recovered first.

"Jacob Milburn. I've been paired with the Professor for the last six months while he helps train me for the job. I was supposed to be with him the day he went missing, but I got a stupid stomach bug and was throwing up back at home, so he went out alone." The officer looked like a kid to Aaron, but he could see a spine forming on him. An officer that was a lot of Reid. He just needed someone to believe in him.

"Yes, we are going to help you find him."

"I've got a letter here for a Hotch?" Milburn asked as he pulled a letter from his shirt pocket. It was crisp and clean. Folded into sixths like Reid usually did when leaving a note for Aaron on his desk about something. Aaron took the note and moved around to sit at Reid's desk. It was laid out much like his desk at the BAU had been. Even without the nameplate on the desk and the coffee mug that Jack had wanted to get for Reid while he had been laid up with leg after another round of surgery after Foyet had been taken care of, Aaron would have known it was his office. It felt like Reid.

Aaron opened the letter and started to read as the rest of the team started to file out of the room. He looked up and found JJ.

"JJ, see about talking to the Sheriff about a visit to Reid's place and talk with anyone who he is friends with."

"You got it, Hotch."

_Hotch,_

_As you have to know by now, I was taken captive at some point, or I'm even dead in this case that I am working. There is a lot going on in the case that even I am having trouble keeping it all straight. Milburn has been a giant help. His entire family hates the cops because an uncle on his mother's side was shot and killed by officers responding to a drunk and disorderly. The man raised a shotgun and started to pull the trigger. It seemed that the gun was loaded with blanks but hear it told by the family and the cops killed him just because they hated going out there and taking him in to let him sleep it off. There was a cell in the old jail back then that was stocked for him. They shot a man who had a gun pointed at them. If I knew he was going to pull the trigger, I would have fired my gun as well._

_Enough about him, though. Use him, he's good, and I can see him being Sheriff one day._

_You are here to look for me. You'll find my journal of personal notes, things that make no sense to my brain at the moment but I still want to noodle as you call it, in the top drawer of my desk._

__

_Come find me, please, Hotch._

_Reid/_

Aaron folded up the letter and slipped it into his pocket before he opened the drawer that he knew had the notebook in it. He found it and tucked it close as he stood up. It fit just inside of his pocket as he looked at the geographic profile. There was the standard abduction pins, as well as dump site pins. It was the normal map that Aaron was used to. Then there was a different set of pins. Purple ones that Aaron had no clue what they were. Aaron figured it had to be in the journal. There was no way to take down the map without having to take out all of the pins, but it wouldn't be hard to go into the office to update things to add in a tangential profile of Reid's abduction point.

* * *

"Tell me what we know that we didn't before?" Aaron asked as he walked back into the room they were working from. It had a connecting door to Reid's office. Before Aaron had known it was Reid's office he had found it very strange but now it was just something that he could see. He could see Reid spreading out in the room to work on cases or other things that he did as Deputy.

"Reid's got his fingers in nearly everything in this town. He babysits a set of twins who are terrors, but he can control them, even when he is on duty by keeping them entertained with science," Prentiss said with a smile. She had gone with Milburn to Reid's house that he rented from a lady who inherited land with two houses. It was a nice little house, Aaron had driven by it once.

"His observations are dead on for what this entire team would have come up with. It seems that he's working well on his own as an officer of the law but still sticking damned close to what he did for the BAU. He's been loaned out on seven cases in the state since he had become the Deputy for the area. He sticks to just working cases and isn't allowed in active shootouts or on suspect takedowns, but really he wasn't ever part of those, to begin with." Dave said the words, but he looked shocked that he was saying them.

Aaron understood the blank looks on a lot of the team's face. While a few letters here and there from Reid had come into the BAU, none of them knew that he was doing this. Aaron heard from JJ nearly weekly of Reid coming for a visit to see Henry who loved the attention from his Godfather.

"It's Garcia," Morgan said as his phone started to ring. So far, the analyst had not been needed to find any information about the case. They had too much to go through that she couldn't help with.

"Go ahead and put her on speaker."

"Why am I being benched?" Garcia demanded.

"Garcia," Aaron said before she could start into a full-on rant.

"Sorry, Sir. I didn't know I was on speaker."

"I know that, and you are forgiven. We are still getting the basics on the case. I was about to call you to find out if you could track all of the cell traffic, where it has been and where he spends the most time."

"I need a cell number."

Aaron looked at the file that had Reid's work number on it. His personal cell stayed at home, and it was where it had been before Prentiss had brought it to him. Aaron had charged it. Aaron had kept it on him since it had been charged. Rattling off the number, Aaron waited to see if Garcia found anything.

"Okay, it was last pinged in the single Asian influenced restaurant in the city, where it has pinged a lot given the amount of tracing I am getting, before going back to where I assume the home is. It's a new phone and paired with a cop's number, and that is why the system is set up in ours. Still...it's pretty well connected and doesn't leave the area except for trips every single weekend to DC. To-" Garcia cut off and Aaron was pretty sure that she had found that the trip to DC was to JJ's place. "Our Boy Wonder?"

"Yes, Penelope."

"I'll work my magic and see what I can find. What about his work number?"

Morgan rattled that off.

"I'll be back as soon as I can be." There wasn't a lot of fun in her voice, she was on a mission.

"JJ, we've all tried to stay out. Reid asked for time and distance, but you tell us that he's doing fine. Anything can link back to why he's not contacted us?"

"He loved the job, and he hated seeing us when he wasn't a part of it. So he left. I didn't hear from him about what he was doing for a long while. He sends all of his letters with a return address of a place in DC. It's one of those boxes that has a real street address. He clams up when I ask about his job, so I don't ask about it. I wasn't expecting this."

"Then that profiles into why he didn't reach out for help before now. He was trying to do it alone, and I'm not blaming him for this." Dave was quick to say that when Morgan and JJ both started to open their mouths. "He's capable mentally, but he knew that shit was turning on him and still he didn't reach out and ask for help. He's not blameless, but I'm also not victim blaming. Milburn is a damned good officer for someone who is young. Reid's done well by him and by this whole place."

"Brannon, you are the least involved in Reid's life, you've never met him. You are less likely to follow the same path as he is, but that's not a bad thing. You work up a profile. The kidnapping of him needs to be factored out. It's a crime of necessity more than anything else. They took him because he was getting close. You are going to work this alone, and we will meet up tomorrow and go from there. I want to walk the town. I want to see who pays too much attention to us. Pairs of two, JJ stay back with Brannon in case he has questions about anything that you can answer."

"I'll go with you," Prentiss said as she stood up and looked at Aaron. Aaron nodded and ignored the glare from Dave. Prentiss looked like she wanted to talk to him.

Aaron changed into different clothes when they stopped at the hotel they were staying at. He didn't want to be seen in a suit, it would make people stare more than just having them go around the city.

"I'm shocked by the Pride things everywhere for a small town."

"Yeah, I plan to ask Reid about that when we find him."

"You think he's alive?"

"I think that they might have taken him because they freaked out about him getting too close, but it would be stupid for them to kill him right off. That would piss off the whole of the cops for this area, many of the citizens. Right now everyone is very much in the land of they care that people are dead, but it's not affected them. Reid's everywhere and loved here. I was talking to the Sheriff, and it's why he was pushed to become the Deputy Sheriff."

"I knew that you wanted him back when he got settled, even if it was just getting him to stay in the office work cases over the long distance. He's not going to do that is he?"

"I don't think so. We might be able to get him to work as a consultant, but that's about it. I'm shocked he didn't go home to Vegas but also not. He stayed close to Henry and JJ."

The townspeople watched Prentiss and Aaron as they walked around. A people engaged them. Busybodies who wanted to be able to gossip. A few who were making sure that they were working on finding Reid.

"They love him," Prentiss said.

"Yeah, almost everyone refers to him as the Professor. I wonder how that got started."

"We'll have to ask him when we find him."

* * *

"So what do we know?" Aaron asked as he finished off his cup of coffee that Brannon and JJ had made a run for. The coffee in the station house was damned good, an influence from Reid but it wasn't like a latte and the shots of espresso in it. Which Aaron really, really needed. He was getting a stress headache, and he knew it. This was not what he thought he was getting into when he had agreed to take this case. He was glad because if his team had got word that another team hunted for Reid, they would have been pissed.

"Reid was damned close to spook the UnSubs. He thought it was a trio and I agree with him," Brannon said as he took a sip of his coffee. He leaned back in his chair and looked at his notes. "He was taken from outside of a little old lady's house, which was where his work cell phone was found as well as his work car. He doesn't own a personal one, car that is. He gets around town by walking, and when he drives to JJ's on the weekend, he uses the car of the lady who he rents off of as she stays home all weekend and can walk where needed. She works four ten hour days and is off for three. As to the case side, it's a group of three UnSubs who are able to blend in with the rest of the town, despite what they did."

"No one suspects them at all and probably talk to them about it, giving them satisfaction. They are liking the power trip of the town being upset by everything and talking about it, with them and making them feel like they are superior."

"One of the three if not all three have a case of feeling like a small fish in a small pond but wanting to be a big fish in that pond," Dave said.

"I agree." Aaron knew that the UnSubs had a great deal of anger in them. They hated that they were trapped in the town, but it did seem that for some reason, they were trapped.

"Siblings?"

"I am unsure about that one. There might be a pair of siblings, but all of them are trapped here for some reason."

"Caring for an ailing family member? That's common."

"Or just never being able to get up enough money to move. Having debt from another source that one is stuck with. There are a lot of reasons that someone could stay trapped in a town like this."

The bits of the profile were thrown out by everyone as they talked. Aaron knew that not everything fit well at all, but they were as close as they were going to get at the moment. There was a lot missing on everything. Aaron hated that they would probably need another body to really see it because if that body was Reid, it was going to cause a shit storm.

Night fell, and Aaron couldn't sleep. He ended up getting dressed again and then heading out into the town and walking it. He had his guns on him, but both were concealed. The cops that were on patrol flashed their lights at him but didn't stop and talk. They flashed their lights at everyone, so he wasn't singled out. Aaron knew that he needed sleep, but that wasn't going to come. There was too much missing from the case. There was too much that was wrong, and he looked like he was looking at a half-formed puzzle, and he knew he was never going to get all of the pieces. It was strange and horrible how quaint the town looked in the dark with what he knew had been growing in the underbelly of it.

"HELP!" a voice screamed out. It was a woman, and it was close.

Aaron took off running toward it, hearing the squeal of car tires that said someone else had heard it and was coming. He hoped it was the on-duty officers. Aaron took a corner sharply and crashed into a woman, she fell back and was covered in blood.

"Ma'am," Aaron said as he reached out to help her up. She was bleeding from a few wounds.

"I'm looking for Hotch."

"I'm Hotch," Aaron said.

"Really?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "What verse did he give as a false quote?"

"Genesis 23:4," Aaron said.

The woman started to sob, and she collapsed into Aaron. The lights from a car washed over them, and Aaron heard the radio chatter that said it was cops.

"Agent Hotchner?" one of them asked.

"We need an ambulance."

"He said that you would know where to look for him from that alone." The woman passed out before Aaron could question her. It was several minutes before anyone approached Aaron.

"The medics are behind us. What do you know?"

"I need my team here, and I need them here now, and I need officers to take each one of us to every single cemetery that is in a twenty-mile radius."

"Why so big?"

"Because I have no clue where he's being held now, but I assume that he's being taken somewhere else since I was given a clue as where to find Reid and she has not run all that far to get where she is now. She's barefoot, and they are not cut or muddy."

"You think they were moving her from the place they took her when she was abducted, and that was where Reid was as well and to wherever they do their torture?" Morgan asked.

Aaron looked at him and saw that the team was there. They all looked a little worse for the wear. Dave was the only one in new clothes, everyone else had put on the clothes they had been wearing the day before.

"I think."

"Why are we searching for cemeteries?" Brannon asked.

"I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight," Aaron said.

"Really?" Dave asked.

"You don't understand," JJ said. She stepped up to Aaron and laid a hand on his shoulder as the medics arrived. The team was silent as Aaron transferred the woman from his arms to the gurney that they had, and he told them what she had done.

"What don't I understand," Dave asked when it was just them again.

"Reid was taken by an UnSub who made us watch him torture Reid in various ways over a live video feed. One was to pick a member of the team that he was going to kill. Reid chose Hotch but gave Genesis 23:4 as the reason but the quote that he said was not the actual quote. It led us to cemeteries where the UnSub was making Reid dig his own grave."

"Reid told that woman that she needed to find Hotch," Aaron said. He looked at the blood on his hands, glad that it wasn't Reid's. "He then made her confirm that I was who I said I was by confirming the misquote from that."

Aaron's phone rang, and he saw that it was Garcia when he pulled it off of his belt clip. "Go ahead, Garcia."

"Sir, I figured out what all of the victims had in common. The paperwork was just filed today because the wheels of bureaucracy move very slowly. All of them were authors of a local ordinance that they were pushing forward through all of the channels about how to hand drugs and those caught with them."

"Good work, Garcia. I need you to do one more thing. Look for cemeteries, burial plots, any place that locals would have buried their dead that is still around. If it's got two graves, hell even a single grave I want to know about it."

"Why?"

"Because that's the only lead that we have on Reid. That he's being held near a cemetery."

"Just like...Oh!" There was a squeak from Garcia and then she was hanging up.

"Agents, we have enough gathered that we can go to the bigger cemeteries," Milburn said as he stepped up.

"You are with me," Aaron said. He could at least protect Milburn for Reid. The young man was dedicated to the job and to Reid. Aaron wasn't shocked that he had made a close friend. It was nice to know that he was protected. Garcia got them all a list, and Aaron compared it to what Milburn had for them. It matched up. He divided them up between the team members and sent them off to start the search.

Milburn drove the car that was used when he and Reid went on patrols and various other things. Aaron was looking around for a sign that Reid had been there as they drove.

The sun was up and blazing hot by the time that the team had cleared all of the locations. Aaron screamed because two of the places that he and Milburn had been at had evidence of someone being there, but they couldn't figure out if it were Reid and the UnSubs who had taken him or not. CSU was at both of them taking whatever evidence they could find.

"He missed you guys," Milburn said as he parked the car just off the edge of the road and pulled Aaron from his thoughts that he had failed Reid again.

Aaron wanted to ask if Milburn knew why Reid had never come to visit the team. He went to see Henry and JJ but never anyone else.

"He talked about all of you when we went out to eat. He was never going to stay here. We were a temporary thing while he got his head on and the Sheriff knows it, but she wants him while we can have him. His life is in DC. His life is with you guys."

Aaron laid his head back, and he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He frowned. "I don't remember this place being on the list."

"What do you mean? There is no cemetery here." Milburn got out of the car, and Aaron followed just a second behind. There were gravestones in the area just off to the side. There were not huge ones like normal ones had. This was more like it was full of gravestones for babies, small like the person who was buried. It wasn't until Aaron saw the first stone that and the name on it was Bluebeard that he looked at the rest. The names were not regular names. Oh, there was a few that had names like Millie and Arthur but never last names. The dates were all shorter as well. Some fifteen, even twenty but most around ten. It was a cemetery for animals. A place where the owners could come and visit. There were toys and treats that Aaron could see scattered on graves.

"What is this?" Aaron asked.

"I forgot about that. It wasn't even on the register because while it's a place to bury the dead, it was a park. I have no clue how it was missed. There is a shack at the edge. All of the gravestones are donated by local places if the person can't afford it or the burial or if they can, they can buy them." 

Aaron drew his gun and looked around as they entered the main section of the small animal cemetery. There was a shack on the edge of the land at the far right. Aaron could see movement inside. There were three men inside, and they were arguing. Aaron couldn't hear them. 

"Can you get close?" Aaron asked. He would rather stay behind and watch to make sure that no one escaped. 

"Yes." Milburn started forward, creeping along the ground toward the shack. 

"He has to die! What does it matter if it's now or not!" one of the men yelled. 

"If we kill him, we are going to have to bury the body. We can't dump it like the others," another said as the door opened. 

Milburn stopped his movement and waited to see what was going to happen. It was two seconds later that Reid was shoved out of the shack. His hands were bound, much like they had been years ago in the other cemetery, his own damned handcuffs holding his hands together. Aaron's heart clenched. 

Reid looked around before he started to stand up, he stopped just for a second when his eyes found Aaron's. He stood up the rest of the way and winced as he did. It would look like his leg hurt instead of him seeing Aaron. Aaron waved Spencer toward him. Reid nodded and took off at a dead run. Which he shouldn't do with his leg but Aaron couldn't stop him, and he wasn't going to yell out that he needed to stop. As soon as Reid was close, Aaron reached out and grabbed him to tug him behind him. Milburn stayed where he was and trained his gun on the corner of the shack where the UnSubs were going to come out. 

"FBI!" Aaron yelled. 

"Shit!" someone yelled, it didn't sound like one of the first two. A face looked out the window that had a direct line of sight on Aaron. There was no way that the person missed that Reid was behind him. 

"Come out with your hands up." 

Milburn was on his radio, making everywhere aware of where to go. 

"We have your last victim, she's at the hospital. We now have Deputy Reid. There is nothing to go but come out and give up." 

"We could shoot our way out."

"Do you really want to die for this?" Aaron asked.

"I'd rather die than go to prison!" the one at the window was the one that yelled that out. 

One of the others came out the door at the side with his hands up and no weapons visible. "I surrender."

"TRAITOR!" 

Milburn moved, reaching around and grabbing the UnSub who had surrendered by the arm and dragging him to safety. 

One of the others came out with a gun in his hand. As soon as the UnSub raised it, Aaron took aim. The UnSub aimed at Aaron and Aaron fired before the UnSub could. The UnSub cried out as Aaron shot him in his dominant shoulder. The UnSub inside of the shack just dropped out of sight before coming out with his hands raised up in the air. 

"You helped her escape," the last UnSub said. 

"Yes. Yes, I did. I would have never made it, but you idiots kept on talking about the place you were going to take me and I knew that no matter what I probably wasn't going to be found there when you got me here. Unless I got the word out."

"How in the hell did you get the word out? There are a lot of cemeteries in the area."

"Easy, I knew who was going to be coming here to take over the case. I knew exactly what to do to make sure that they found me as soon as you all let me know where you were taking me."

"How?" 

Milburn moved forward while Aaron had them both under his weapon so that he could handcuff the two UnSubs. Aaron tossed over his set of cuffs when Milburn was done with the first. It was only then that Milburn stepped away to raise his gun on them. Aaron turned around and dropped to his knees and shoved his gun into the holster before he grabbed the key for cuffs. He laughed, though when Reid showed him his naked wrists. 

"Vegas boy," Aaron said. He cupped the back of Reid's head and drew him up into a hug. Reid's arms wrapped around him and held onto him tightly. Aaron dropped down onto his ass and kept Reid there in his arms. Unlike before, Reid wasn't protesting the long hold. 

The squeal of tires told Aaron that they were not alone, but he didn't pull out of his hug of Reid until he felt hands on him. It was Morgan who was there, and Aaron allowed Morgan to get his hug in. There were more and more tires as the rest of the team arrived to check on what was going on and to make sure that everything was fine. 

"Hey, Spence," JJ said as she dropped down beside Aaron and Reid. She picked up his hands and looked at where he had few marks from the handcuffs. JJ kissed them. "You are in deep shit."

"I am not. There is no reason that my kidnapping should have been part of the profile on the original kidnappings. I hold by that." Reid turned a little and slumped into Aaron's body. It was strange, but then this was the second time that Aaron had saved him from a cemetery where someone wanted to kill him. 

"We should have known about where you were before this, Genius," Prentiss said. 

Reid just shrugged at that. 

"Deputy Reid!" the Sheriff said as she walked up close. She looked Reid up and down. "You are going to the hospital."

"Not even going to make a token protest on that one. I want Hotch to go with me," Reid said. 

"Sure," Aaron said. 

"Give me the report of how you were taken by them." 

"Blitz attack. I was stopping by to drop off Mable's medicines. Their delivery boy was puking, so when I was in the shop getting some more over the counter pain killers. We had the rush of storms that made my knee ache. It hurts like a son of a bitch right now."

"So you didn't see anything?"

"Not until I woke up in Old Man Ranger's silo."

"How do you know that was where you were?"

"Because I saw a brief flash of that damned tree that's painted orange. That's why I made sure that Melissa got free. She had been taken about two hours before I got her out of there. That's when they moved me early. They assumed that she would lead cops back to them."

"When we got here they were debating killing him and hiding the body. It was strange to hear that while knowing that the Professor had to be in there."

There was a chirping whoop that told Aaron that the medic was there. Aaron started to stand up and waited until he got up before he reached down for Reid, but Reid looked like he wasn't going to get up with him. Aaron saw that his knee was swollen enough that it had stretched to the pants to the end of what they could do. 

"I'm going to pick you up," Aaron said as he crouched again and put an arm under Reid's knees and then his shoulders to help lift him up. 

"Ready," Reid said. 

Aaron stood up, picking up Reid at the same time and found that Reid was in a lot more pain than it seemed as he was covered in sweat by the time that Aaron had stood up all the way. Morgan was there the entire time that Aaron was carrying Reid to the ambulance that was at the edge. The two medics had the gurney out for Aaron to settle Reid onto. 

"I'm going to pass out now, okay?" Reid asked. 

"Sure. I'll be right here."

"Good." Reid's eyes closed and it just seemed like he just switched off and passed out. 

"Is he okay?" Morgan asked. 

"I think so. He's just in a lot of pain." Aaron reached out and brushed the hair back from his forehead. The medics started to prepare the gurney for the trip into the back of the ambulance. Aaron followed behind them as they pushed the gurney up into the back of the ambulance before raising it up again. 

"So, you are one of the FBI agents," the female EMT said. Her name tag put her as Sara. 

"Yes. Aaron Hotchner."

"Ah, Hotch. The Professor has spoken of you a lot."

"Really?" Aaron asked. He looked down at Reid. 

The trip was long, but that was mainly because they took him right to the closest hospital instead of the local freestanding ER that served the more rural areas. 

"Oh, yes. You and Agent Jareau are the ones that he talks about the most. Well, besides Henry and Jack."

Aaron didn't question them more on that. It seemed that Reid hadn't forgotten about them as much as it appeared. He just wondered when he was going to come home.

* * *

The sound of movement woke Aaron up from the light doze that he was in. He looked around for the nurse checking on Reid but found that there was no one in the room. Aaron looked at the bed that Reid was asleep on after the surgery to repair the damage done by the UnSubs breaking his knee cap. That he had been able to run over to Aaron like he had after getting out of the shack was pure luck as he should not have been able to do that, but the body was capable of amazing feats when life was on the line.

"Hotch?" Reid asked.

"Yeah." Aaron looked around for the glasses that he had settled them. He had taken control of them when they had arrived at the hospital. Aaron hadn't let them out of his sight. The biggest surprise was that he was Reid's medical proxy, Aaron had been shocked as hell about that. 

"Am I okay?" 

"You are. You are going to have to walk with a cane for a long while, but you won't be in a brace for near as long as you were the first time. The doctor doesn't see why you can't get back to where you were before after this." 

"Good. How long until I am released?"

"Well, that's where it gets a little dicey. You are not going to be released to stay alone for weeks. They will want you in a rehab place until you can get around by yourself."

Reid laid his head back on the bed and closed his eyes. Aaron reached over and tapped Reid's glasses off of the hand closest to him. Reid turned his hand over and then put his glasses on his face. He blinked a few times at the room before he focused on Aaron. 

"You found me."

"I'll always find you." Aaron stood up and leaned over the bed. He found Reid's hand and squeezed it. "No matter what, Reid. I'll do anything to find you."

"I'm so tired."

"You are awake from major surgery. Your doctor wants me to let him know when you woke up, but you are speaking fine and don't seem to have issues, so I don't need to get them. I can just let them know. You just rest, and then we will figure out what to do after that."

"I wanna go home," Reid said. 

"Then we will figure out something."

"No. I mean home, home." 

Aaron smiled down at him as Reid's eyes closed in sleep again letting the pain killers taking him back to sleep. He waited until he was sure that Reid was asleep before he settled back down into his chair. He didn't let go of Reid's hand, but he drew his phone out and texted Garcia about getting his guest room set up for Reid in his place. Aaron still had a lot of the stuff packed up in his storage in the bottom of the building from when he had needed some help to do things. 

Reid coming home was the best thing. 

# The End

**Author's Note:**

> I write fanfiction for fun. It's a hobby and a stress relief. I refuse to stress over my writing. What you see is what you get. Errors, plot holes, and all. Thank you for reading my story! 
> 
> I can be found on MeWe (a FB replacement that's better) [here](https://mewe.com/i/beccaqueen1), join me there and we can discuss my fics and whatnot. My writing page for the moment is kind of dead in the water on a FB front as links are being banned for content.


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